Quote:
Originally Posted by sun surfer
Why can't an e-reader have both options?
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Page is already overloaded as it is between Adobe's eBook definition, Amazon trying to map eBooks to certain print editions, and the definition for print editions. I'd have preferred they didn't use "page" at all because of that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sun surfer
I'd much rather it display pages by screen, not by characters. A book does it the same way. It doesn't count characters for page numbers; it just numbers whatever happens to be on each page.
<snip>
I can see how some who read on multiple platforms may like pages by characters, but I generally use just one, and I'd much rather pages by screen.
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The problem is that if pages are by screen, the work becomes impossible to cite as a reference without some other means to cite location within an eBook. That's why Adobe did what they did. Citations are a big roadblock towards wide-spread acceptance of eBooks if you cannot appropriately cite the source. Having to include device, font, size, etc in your citation doesn't actually make the book any more citable.
A printed book can be cited by page because the page is constant for the edition. You cite the work, edition and page and you have a means to locate the cited source. I can pick up any copy of that edition and find the source. What Adobe was trying to do is make it possible to cite the work, edition (ePub + date usually), and page, just like books to date. I can then grab that ePub edition on any device I have (laptop, nook, Sony, Kobo, desktop, blah, blah, blah) and find the source.
As I said though, I don't like how overloaded the term page is, and actually liked that Amazon used the term 'location' instead. But as it is, we can't just change the meaning of 'page' in the context of ePub without other more drastic changes (and invalidating all current citations of ePub works).